Nordmende TM3 - saved from the kerbside

[AndrewM]

It was council rubbish collection time near where I do some casual work in the city so I spent some time hunting for TV's to save before the trip home.

It was well worth the time spent as I spotted this very rare 1976 Nordmende Spectra TM3 sitting on the kerb amongst some other junk. It is missing its ultrasonic remote transmitter and the control door but is otherwise complete.

These sets have an unusual feature of having a row of LEDS to indicate the "level" of the control settings. When powered up I imagine it would be very colorful!

This set has had a hard life and the cabinet finish has deteriorated but is reasonable. It is hard to see in the picture but a child has had some fun drawing on the screen with a crayon at some stage.



The chassis has some light rusting in places and has signs of numerous repairs over the years (several electrolytic capacitors replaced).



I also rescued some early Australian sets of Japanese origin which I'll post pictures of in another thread.

After such a successful find, 3 days later I decided to drive the 2 hours back to the area to see if I could find some other rarities. Sadly I had no luck with finding English GEC's, or some other imported sets I'm looking for. The trip was worthwhile though as I filled the car up with TV chassis to provide spares for my existing collection. 30 year old TV's still seem to be turning up fairly often though it seems to be mainly the super reliable Japanese models.

Sadly, Some things had to be left behind as I only have a medium sized car. Hopefully the B&O LX2802 and Philips KD684 I saw escaped the crusher, though I doubt there are that many people silly enough to collect TV's!